


The Kitchen is 1,000 Miles Long

by BitFic



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Humantale, Human Papyrus, Human Sans, M/M, Roommates, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-04-13 13:33:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14113440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BitFic/pseuds/BitFic
Summary: Papyrus and Mettaton live together. Mettaton struggles to tell Papyrus how he really feels.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shreddedpatches](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shreddedpatches/gifts).



Papyrus entered the kitchen, arms stretched nearly to the ceiling in a long and silent yawn. His eyes blinked once, twice, then rapidly several more times. With a small shake of his head he resumed his path towards the pantry.

Mettaton was already there, sitting on the counter, watching his sleepy, skeleton-thin roommate meander around the room. He longed to say something, anything, to him. He rolled around a few ideas, things to get his attention, the right words. They eluded him. He remained silent.

Papyrus groped for something in the pantry, creating a small symphony of rattling jars and cans as he bumped them into each other. Finally he found his prey: A loaf of bread, half gone but still possessing each end of the loaf, likely to be left for last and eaten as a compensation prize for the victory kill of the full loaf. In retrospect, half a loaf was very generous. They were nearly out.

Mettaton remained in place, not leaning forward eagerly like he’d have liked to, or rocking gently or hopping off the counter or swinging his legs. Instead he sat perfectly still, waiting. Papyrus circled the kitchen aimlessly, growing closer to Mettaton, but handling other matters bit by bit on his way. A cutting board rinsed off, an open drawer closed, the blender pushed back a bit. Mettaton almost felt jealous seeing Papyrus hold the blender, but knew his turn would come.

Papyrus untwisted the plastic bag of bread, the tiny plastic clip meant to keep it sealed lost long ago. The bag released an aroma he was too groggy to properly appreciate, even if the kitchen wasn’t filled with other, less pleasant smells. The trash needed to be taken out, in addition to the two robust white bags by the door. How did so much of it accumulate? It was hardly a few days beyond the last garbage day.

Mettaton, to his credit, remained still and silent. He was eager for the interaction, the touch, the warmth, but he didn’t dare initiate. It wasn’t his place to.

Papyrus pulled out a fluffy piece of white bread. He seemed to reconsider what he was doing, and grabbed a plate before reaching into the bag again to procure a second. He set them both down on the plate and went for the pantry once more, digging out a jar of peanut butter and some sort of jam. He couldn’t really be sure what flavor it was, probably jam flavored. The label on the bottle would surely say, but why bother to read it?

Finally Papyrus was approaching Mettaton. They were looking at each other now, Mettaton doing his best to smile sweetly while Papyrus regarded him with a detached, yet warm expression. Papyrus put his hand gently on Mettaton and slid him forward on the counter, pulling the two closer together. Slowly, gently, he raised one of the slices of bread from his plate, and inserted it into Mettaton’s open mouth.

Mettaton eagerly accepted the treat, feeling the warmth of Papyrus’s hand on his cheek. Papyrus grabbed the second piece of bread and added it to the first. They both knew no more could fit.

Papyrus turned away coldly, went to the silverware drawer, and procured a butterknife. Mettaton sat eagerly, still feeling the warmth of Papyrus’s hand and his own desire for that daily interaction, two whole pieces of toast still sitting in his mouth. He didn’t dare swallow, he wanted to savor every bit of this moment.

Soon Mettaton decided it was time, and chimed in for the first time, breaking the relative silence of the kitchen:

“DING!” Mettaton said.

Papyrus turned around, smiling at Mettaton. He removed the pieces of bread from his mouth, now fully toasted. He scooted Mettaton back to his resting place on the counter, toast discarded onto the plate to be smeared with Peanut Butter and Jam.

Mettaton began to cool off, his purpose now served. He recalled with a bittersweet joy the memory of moments ago, when Papyrus had held him, had fed him, had given him a purpose. He was whole, in that moment. Now, sadly, he would wait almost 24 hours for tomorrow, for the next time their paths would cross. He wished so badly to say something more, to ask to be held or touched or fed something other than bread. But this was his job, and he was going to do it until the day he was unplugged.

\---

Papyrus shut off the lights to the kitchen, ready to move out and on with his day. Behind him he heard a chime, like the toaster going off again. He looked back to see it catch a glint of light from the window, but shortly dismissed the strange behavior, and made his way to the bedroom to get dressed.


	2. Chapter 2

Mettaton sat on the counter, as he always did in the mornings. The light from the window made a lazy shower of dust particles appear to flitter in and out of existence like tiny ghosts dancing around the kitchen. Mettaton perked up, to the extent he could from his hunched position, eager for the best part of his day to begin.

Papyrus entered the kitchen from the usual door, but immediately something was off. Papyrus wasn’t dressed, but that wasn’t unusual. He had boxers with dancing skeletons on them, and the word  _spooky_ in a dripping, cartoony font. His socks were more or less white with mismatched toe patterns, one a grey block and the other a yellow stripe. These weren’t the details that made today feel wrong. Rather, to Mettaton’s surprise, Papyrus had stopped dead in the kitchen door and begun staring at him.

Mettaton became concerned something was wrong with him from the horror on Papyrus’s face. He wanted to give himself a once-over to see what the issue was, but didn’t dare look away, despite the growing risk he may be on fire. Instead he put on a sweet smile and tried to sit as still as he could, waiting for Papyrus to resume his routine.

“Hello?” said Papyrus.

Mettaton took a quick peek around the room to see who Papyrus was talking to, wondering if they would step into view from a corner he had overlooked.

But nobody came…and there was no sign he was on fire.

“Who- What are you?” Papyrus said, his voice a little shaky despite being hoarse from having just woken up.

Mettaton waited for somebody else to respond. When nobody did, he began to panic a little. His smile faltered. The concerned expression Mettaton now wore must have alarmed Pap, since the man was digging skeletal-thin fingers into his pocket for a cell-phone.

Mettaton decided he should probably speak up.

“DING!” He chimed.

Papyrus shrieked a little and dropped his cellphone on the floor, alarmed by the volume at which Mettaton made his proclamation.

Mettaton scowled at himself, watching the phone clatter across the kitchen floor towards him. It scampered like a rat to a hiding place just beneath the lip of the cupboards. “Ding.” He said, a little quieter this time.

Papyrus looked at him in shock, stood in a paralyzed stillness that Mettaton was oh so familiar with. The two of them made the appearance of mannequins, stood still in a display window while the rest of the world enjoyed the passage of time outside. For what seemed like a long while they simply waited for one another to move.

Mettaton was greatly enjoying the acknowledgement of his presence, and was willing to allow the moment to drag on. It was more than he usually achieved in these little interactions.

Papyrus broke the silence first: “What are you doing here? Can you talk?”

Mettaton didn’t want to break the eye contact he’d so desperately longed for all these years, but determined something about him must have changed to make Pap act this way, and tore his gaze down to his body to see what had so alarmed his roommate.

To his surprise he had a shiny metallic pair of legs, dangling casually from the countertop. He realized he had felt taller than usual. A quick glance showed him Papyrus was still in the doorway, watching him like a deer looking into headlights. Feeling secure in the knowledge that he wouldn't lose track of Papyrus if he looked away,  he went back to inspecting himself. He had arms, which were wrapped around his lower thighs, pressing them to his torso as though he was trying to give them a hug.

A hug...

Mettaton could hug Papyrus.

“DING! DING DING!!” Mettaton announced, unable to contain his excitement. He looked up at Papyrus, eyes and mouth wide with excitement in an almost cartoonish smile.

Papyrus was backing up, disappearing into the black rectangular void of the doorframe, arms extended forward and knees bent like he was about to dive into a pool, pointed at Mettaton. It was a slow, cautious self defense posture, a way to ensure the robot didn’t move or perhaps quieted down, a pose full of universal symbols that expressed fear or discomfort.

But Mettaton, the former toaster, didn’t have many points of reference when it came to human expression. That knowledge belonged to the TV.

Mettaton raised his arms and pointed them at Papyrus, palms flat to mirror him in a double  _stop_ hand signal. He bounced excitedly on the counter, flexing mechanical thigh muscles and enjoying the newfound mobility.

Papyrus looked back into the dark hallway, weighing his options between the situation control afforded to him by keeping the robot in his line of sight, and the potential freedom of escaping the house and contacting…. Robot police? How was he going to explain that there was a robot in his house when he woke up? He realized he’d let the creature out of his sight for far too long at this point, and returned his focus promptly to the kitchen.

To his surprise, the robot still sat there, arms extended, a childlike expression of raw happiness immortalized on it’s silver-skinned face.

This was all very strange, thought Mettaton. Where was the bread? Why hadn’t Papyrus made a smoothie? Was the blender broken perhaps? Good. Mettaton didn’t like the blender. Mettaton was the better appliance, he’d been around longer and he got used nearly every day, the blender was just a fancy, overpriced piece of junk.

“Okay… Okay, okay, okay am I- I just, I don’t…” Papyrus began to ramble, snapping Mettaton out of his increasingly morbid thoughts about the goddamn blender.

Mettaton couldn’t figure out why Pap had taken so long to get the ball rolling, and began to worry the poor man was going to be late getting dressed. He leaned over and plucked the bread from the counter, humming the way Papyrus sometimes used to. He looked at Papyrus, hoping to see some sign of approval or excitement at what the new body allowed him to do.

Papyrus’s dismayed look made Mettaton a little discouraged, but he soldiered on, opening the bread the way he’d seen Papyrus open it many times before, and raising a slice to his head to plop into his mouth.

The bread didn’t fit. Mettaton became anxious. He tried again to slide the bread smoothly into his mouth, but it was far too wide. Seeing the confused and alarmed Papyrus begin to look around the room, perhaps for a better suited appliance to toast his bread, Mettaton stuffed the whole slice into his mouth. He grabbed a second one and began jamming it in as well, but there was little room, and the first slice wasn’t toasting properly. Instead it felt…. Wet.

In his confusing and sadness, Mettaton hadn’t noticed Papyrus slip away, disappearing into the other room and out the front door. Only the all too familiar sound of the weather door finally slamming shut, as it did every day that Papyrus left for work, notified Mettaton that his opportunity to impress had vanished.

Mettaton spat the toast out, now a soggy mess, and curled up on the counter to wait for the next day.


	3. Chapter 3

“So uh… that’s neat.”

 _Oh great,_ thought Mettaton, _It’s the brother._ Mettaton didn’t bother to move. He never used to before, so why start now? There was a great silence, the kind that made the hum of the fridge and the dripping of the sink unusually loud. Of course, Mettaton was used to that silence. Apparently, so was Sans.

Sans stood there for a little under a minute, taking in the details. The front door was partially ajar. Soggy bread sat on the floor mere feet away from a cracked smartphone that had wormed its way under the cabinet door. The bag of bread, evidently where the soggy bread slice had come from, was open on the countertop with the little white freshness clip clinging to the neck of the bag for dear life. A silver-chrome robot sat on the counter staring at him.

That was probably the most unusual element of the kitchen tableau.

“Neat,” Sans said again, before turning and walking calmly towards the front door. He had seen Papyrus outside from his bedroom window, pacing fervently in his skeleton boxers, kicking up little clouds of dust in the front yard. That is, if you could really call it a yard. Ironically, Sans had also worn his skeleton boxers today.

“Sans! Did you see that thing? I mean what the hell was that?” Papyrus belted out, ceasing to pace but standing a fixed distance from the front door.

“It uh… looked like a robot,” Sans said helpfully.

“Yeah! Obviously! What is it doing here?”

Sans looked back over his shoulder at the robot, dormantly seated on the countertop with both arms tucked under its legs.

“I’ll go ask it,” Sans said, walking away from the front door without closing it. The sun was coming up higher now, peaking at a fresh angle around the door frame and shining a ray of light into the kitchen. It deflected off of Mettaton’s thigh and cast a peculiarly shaped light on the wall.

Mettaton watched the chubby little man-child approach again. He didn’t like the chubby man-child. It made a mess of the kitchen without seeming to eat anything, but never lost the baby fat for some reason. Sometimes it would pour ketchup into the blender and make a disgusting mockery of a milkshake.

That was actually pretty funny.

“Hey there. You uh… got a permit to park there?” It spoke.

Mettaton looked up at Sans, who stood barely a few inches taller than Mettaton’s eye-level while the robot was hunched down on the counter. He put on his most unamused face, but worried he wasn’t doing a good job.

“Ding.” He responded dryly. Sans gave him a quizzical look, but only with his eyes.

“Alright then. So are you the toaster?” Sans posited.

Mettaton doubled down on his unamused look, shifting his weight slightly to better show Sans his scowling lips. The light glinting off of his legs danced around the room in response to his movements.

“I just noticed the toaster is missing,” Sans continued, “and you are sitting where it usually goes. That and you seem to have tried to make some toast.” His eyes motioned down to the floor where the soggy bread woefully sat.

Mettaton’s unamused scowl transformed into a rageful scowl as the sorrow at his loss of talent overtook him. He grabbed for the bag of bread in a sudden motion, arm darting across the counter to find purchase in the plastic opening to the grainless loaf container. Much like he had doubled down on his expression, he was ready to take another stab at making the beautiful golden toast he had once prided himself on.

Sans watched in a mixture of horror and awe as two entire slices of bread extricated themselves from the bag and were crammed with great force into the robot’s mouth. The robot then went still, sitting on the counter at full height, looking down into Sans’ eyes with a glowing hot rage.

Or were his eyes actually glowing orange? No, it was his mouth. He was a toaster, after all. Sans took a step back, considering the sight he was made witness to.

“Okay, so you are the toaster. Got it. Don’t you think that toast is gonna turn out a little crunched?”

Mettaton narrowed his eyebrows, then shifted his focus to the end of the counter where the trash can hung out. His expression softened a little and his cheeks began to resume their usual silver color. He spat the toast out onto the counter, one small toast ball rolling into the trash while the other unfurled on the counter like a dying spider.

Sans began to speak, trying to comfort the seemingly insecure toaster-bot: “It’s okay, you managed to toast it at least. Hey, maybe I should introduce myself. I’m Sans, Sans the skeleton.” He pointed at his shirt, which had a ribcage printed across it. “It’s uh… Our favorite time of year, we have this skeleton joke… it’s kind of dumb. You probably wouldn’t get it.”

Mettaton watched Sans curiously, unsure about the time of year or how wearing a shirt made you a skeleton. He followed Sans’ finger, which had now changed from pointing to his shirt to pointing at an orange plastic pumpkin with a dumb face, full to the brim of colorful metallic candy wrappers. Many were opened and put back, despite the pumpkin sitting in the general vicinity of the trash can.

“Ding!” Mettaton chimed, trying and failing to effect a different intonation in his voice than usual.

“What the hell is going on in there?” Papyrus yelled from outside the doorway. He had made it all the way to the bottom step of the stoop, slowly closing the gap between the front yard and the front door.

“DING!! DING DING!” Mettaton exclaimed, trying to shift his position on the counter so he could see Papyrus.  
“Why don’t you just get off the counter?” Sans asked as Papyrus half walked, half ran back to the supposed safety of the dry brown lawn in front of the house.

Mettaton looked down at the floor, his feet dangling above it precariously. He dipped a toe down lower, but wasn’t able to make contact with the hardwood.

“Hey Papyrus, I think you’re safe to go get changed if you didn’t want to spend all day in your boxers. The neighbors are probably getting worried,” Sans said loudly.

“Well if they are really worried they should come ask me why I’m mostly naked in front of my house!” Papyrus returned.

 _He must be stressed._ Sans thought, adding out loud to his thought: “Don’t worry robot, he’s usually way nicer. I think you just rattled his bones.”

Mettaton, to his credit, had slid his hips to the edge of the counter, and was extending a single long leg down towards the floor. He was clearly too preoccupied with what he was doing to notice Papyrus sneak by the kitchen doorway, making an effort to get back on track with his morning routine.

“I’ll make you a smoothie.” Sans said, trying to aid in the effort to make things feel normal again while a former-toaster robot psyched itself up in the kitchen.

Mettaton saw Sans going for the blender, acutely aware that this wasn’t about to be a ketchup milkshake, and felt his mouth grow hot. The little man-child was going to usurp him, to brush his remaining toast-ball off the counter into the trash and get Papyrus a smoothie for breakfast. That wasn’t going to be good enough for Papyrus, he needed something more substantial.

Mettaton grabbed the blender by the handle and threw it at the window. It collided with a loud crash, glass exploding into an intricate series of rainbow strokes as it caught the sunlight, creating a brief moving painting before gravity took hold and brought the many little shards to the ground.


	4. Chapter 4

The crash of the blender was accompanied by a thud in the other room. Papyrus’s room. Papyrus was likely in the middle of putting his pants on and fell over when the noise spooked him, or perhaps he dropped something when he startled. Whatever the case, he was peeking around the kitchen door frame moments later.

“I know, I get it. You’re jealous, aintcha kid?” Sans was on his knees next to the robot.

“Mettaton.” chimed the robot.

Sans looked somewhat startled, glanging briefly back at Papyrus. A cool breeze came in through the broken window, chilling him to his bones. He thought wistfully of his blue coat, discarded on the floor in his bedroom.  _ Did the robot just say something _ ?

“Not  _ kid. _ ” The robot said, adding an addendum to its earlier proclamation.

“Okay, so you’re called Mettaton?” Sans asked, putting on a smile.

“Sans, why is it talking? What’s going on?” Papyrus asked, seemingly too exhausted now to sound stressed or apprehensive.

“Met-ah-ton.” Mettaton said, looking up into Sans’ eyes desperately.

“Yeah, I gotcha uh… Mettaton.” Sans said as reassuringly as he could manage. He stood up as he spoke, placing his hand on the counter to steady his ascension. Mettaton, as if prompted by Sans’ action, stood too, quickly and eagerly. He pointed at Papyrus, who nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Papyrus!” He exclaimed.

“Yeah- Uh- Yeah, that’s me!” Papyrus squeaked.

“Great job, kid.” Sans said, heading for the garage. “Looks like everything’s sorted out; I’m gonna go get something to patch up that hole.”

Mettaton ran at Papyrus, who shrieked as the big silver bullet came at him. Mettaton stopped dead, looked around, and then back at Pap. He put his arms behind his back and looked at the floor. The toaster had become a robot, then a loud noise in the other room, then a bullet, and was now… Being kind of cute?

Pap put his hand to his chest; he wasn’t used to this much excitement. He wasn’t sure how to feel about the robot. It had just destroyed part of the kitchen and he was down a toaster, but it was becoming rather evident that the toasterbot wasn’t going to hurt him. It looked almost like an anime character from one of Undyne’s shows in the pose it was in, swoopy hair dangling in front of one of its eyes.

“How contrived.” Sans entered the room holding a tarp and a roll of duct tape.

“Contrived?” said Pap, confused.

“I meant convenient, look: We’ve got a tarp and some tape for the window. Most of the glass fell outside so I guess we don’t need to worry too much about cleanup in here.”

“Oh, good…” Papyrus said, only half paying attention. He was busy watching Mettaton, who was busy watching Papyrus watch him.

“You should get to work, shouldn’t you?” Sans said suddenly, climbing onto the counter to reach the top of the broken window. “I can keep things tidy here.”

“Oh uh… Okay. Yeah, they’re gonna be missing me there. Can’t get much done without the great Papyrus, you know?” Pap laughed nervously, trying to get back into the daily groove with a dumb joke.

“Heh.” Sans said, not quite a laugh.

“Oh and on the way home I’ll get a new toa-” Pap started, but was quickly interrupted by the duct tape roll falling to the counter and then rolling to the ground.

“Yeah, uh, no need to say more. Maybe think it over. Wouldn’t want another broken window, would we?” Sans said, winking at Pap in a somewhat aggressive manner.

Mettaton looked at each of them, switching between the two faster and faster as he tried to work out what was going on. They were communicating it seemed, perhaps telepathically, as they looked at each other without saying anything.

“Gotcha bro.” Pap said, “Oh gosh!” Pap exclaimed, catching sight of the clock. He ran out the door, grabbing his keys off the stand in the entryway quick enough to leave it wobbling. Mettaton took a few steps towards the door as if to catch up with him, but stopped and turned to look at Sans.

“Papyrus?” Mettaton said, slowly and with emphasis. He held his hands out and down in something resembling a quizzical gesture, but certainly not one that any normal person had ever done.

“He’ll be back, you should know how this works by now.” Sans said. “And hey, if you wanna help me with the window, you’d be a superstar.”

“Super… Star.” Mettaton said, looking up at the window. He reached up and started holding the tarp against the opposite corner of the window. Sans was just finishing applying an incredibly liberal layer of duct tape to the first corner of the tarp, and hadn’t gotten to the second corner in the five or so minutes he was working on his project.

“Yeah, just like that. Thanks,” Sans said, putting a single, long stretch of tape across the corner Mettaton was holding up for him. “That should do it,” he said, hopping off the counter.

Mettaton let go of the corner and watched the tarp fall down, the tug of the corner with the single piece of tape pulling the first corner nearly off as it fell. Mettaton became flustered and looked at Sans, but then remembered his love of practical jokes and unfinished projects. He thought about calling out to Sans, who was making his way into the living room, but decided to simply hop off the counter and follow him.

“Did the tarp fall? Eh, it’s nice out, I can hear some birds chirping this way. We could use a little sunshine, too.” Sans said, turning the TV on. Mettaton got on the couch, sitting with his arms under his thighs in the same manner he had sat when Sans first en- “countered” him on the counter. “Is that comfy?” Sans asked, incredulous of this strange pose.

Mettaton looked up at Sans, his neck contorting in a manner that was definitely not comfortable. The silver-chrome robot shrugged it’s shoulders, which could barely move with it’s arms pinned under his legs.

Sans leaned back, flipping through a couple channels. His eyes were already starting to close as he got drowsy. “I’m just saying, you can sit however you’d like. You’re not on the counter anymore.”

Mettaton got down on the floor in front of the TV, face perhaps a little too close to the relatively small screen. His legs extended out behind him, but were bent up in the air at the knee so they wouldn’t collide with the couch.

Sans only had one eye open now. “Hey, that looks more comfortable.” he said, transitioning into a yawn and slinking down further onto the couch. He noted Mettaton swinging his feet excitedly as he watched a pop-star on TV. The curtains of his upper eyelids came down on the scene that was unfolding before him, and he fell into a deep sleep.


End file.
